


The Choice

by RiddleMeTransfixed



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 16:30:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14406045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiddleMeTransfixed/pseuds/RiddleMeTransfixed
Summary: We all have regrets, who knew that my biggest one would be you?





	The Choice

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, This is my first time writing something like this, not sure where it is going, just kinda letting it go. If you like it and want more, then I will oblige. Yes, I know it is short, but sometimes these things just need to get out. 
> 
> ~Aria~

People ask me all the time, when will you get married? When will you settle down? Isn’t your biological clock ticking? I laugh them off, or roll my eyes, tell them that there is more to life then getting married, more things then reproducing. I have my job, my career. I make a difference in the lives of those around me, what else could be more important? If it weren’t for me, muggle-borns would be left behind, magical creatures wouldn’t have rights in our society. I am making a difference, who cares that I am alone? The sacrifice is worth it, what I am doing it worth it in the long run. I am bettering society, even if I am killing myself in the long run.

Ironic, how I say that to myself now, isn’t that what he told me? Somethings were worth sacrificing yourself for. I never understood him, not really, even though he said we were made from the same cloth. We had the argument many times, in what short time we had together. I didn’t want to believe it then, I was too young to understand, to naïve. In the early days, I thought I could save him, I thought I could be the difference that was needed to change things, to change him. It didn’t take long for me to realize my mistake, Tom Marvolo Riddle didn’t need saving. He wasn’t some damsel that was lured to the dark side because of circumstance. Tom was in control, the whole time, something my adolescent brain couldn’t understand.

If I could go back, if I could change things, I would. I have no doubt in my mind that I would join him, it is something I think of every night, before I lure myself to sleep with fire whiskey. I stare hard into the emerald ring on my finger, tracing the delicate metalwork with my fingers, and I remember when he gave it to me, the purpose it was to have. I remember my horror, I recall turning him down, I remember ending it. It was the worst mistake of my life. Had I chosen differently, perhaps everyone I loved wouldn’t be dead, perhaps my parents wouldn’t be in the middle of Australia, with no knowledge of the daughter that was erased from their lives. Then again, their Hermione might never have existed.

It was all apart of the questions that haunted me during my waking hours, things that might have been, things that would now never be. With each passing day I hate myself more and more, and wish that I could have gone back, if not for my sake, then for everyone else’s. At least that is what I tell myself, though in my heart of hearts I know the truth, even though it is a hard thing to swallow. I, Hermione Jean Granger, Brightest Witch of her age, the brains of the golden trio, had a darker side, one that was completely in love with Tom Marvolo Riddle, the Dark Lord, and the one person in the world I never should have cared for. After all, I am part of the filth he wished to destroy.

I suppose that is the strange thing about love, you can’t choose who you have those feelings for, if I could, I would turn them off, I would go back and warn myself to put the time turner down, that I would be better off. I know myself enough to know I would never listen. I was too prideful, believing I could do it, I could change the future, one way or another. I didn’t know it then, didn’t realize that all my research on Voldemort, all the questions I asked of harry about him, was something much darker then a curiosity.

Love is a strange thing, it can build people up, or it could rip them apart, until they are mere phantoms of themselves. I learnt that the hard way.


End file.
